Writing

One week ago I had the pleasure of attending a Medical Writers' symposium. I am not a medical writer. My work history and schooling is in emergency medicine/orthopedics. But I seemed to have left all hopes of attaining any type of "success" in my "career" when I had children. I went back to work for only one week after my oldest was 2 1/2 months old. And I knew that you couldn't pay me enough to work when my teeny baby was at home without me. It just did not feel right. So I have managed to stay home or work hours that allowed me to be home with the children during their waking hours ever since.

But now my kids are 5 and 1 3/4 and it gets me thinking about what I could do to get back into some type of professional career. I was researching a local university's site and stumbled upon a page dedicated to "which alternative career could I choose, coming from a medical background?" It was as if it was made for me! And the one career that stood out (that made sense with our family situation and our geographic location) was Medical Writing.

What is it, you ask? Well....let me allow the professionals to explain.
http://www.amwa.org/default.asp?id=420

Yes, i'm making you click on a link!! I happen to be writing at 11pm, and I could use a break! ;)

So anyway, there are areas of medical writing that are out of the question for me. Without additional schooling and without moving to a different location, the working for pharmaceutical companies part just would not work. But I see potential in many other areas--even if only simply creating patient education documents, etc.

So I attended this symposium. What a great group of people! All were friendly and willing to answer my questions. I even met a few others whom were searching for more information, like myself. What I found was that the career is great for professional mothers (not limited to them, of course!) and that some have had success working as freelance writers, from home! Wow. But then would come the hard work of rounding up the work and managing my own business....been there. Not wild about it. ha. But I guess that's why I have a great accountant!

I feel like I left the symposium full of information, but more confused about what exactly I should pursue than before I had arrived. So that is it. It is a great career, and would take work to begin, but I believe I could do it. ....but should I???

On a lighter note, do you know what my one year-old did tonight? He flushed a large, round rock (his brother's FAVORITE rock, I might add) down the toilet! I rushed in to the bathroom right as he flushed the toilet. I caught a glimpse of it, and down, away it went....really not good for the septic system (especially considering I just spent over $300 having it pumped just a week ago!). But I am glad I recognized what went down the toilet. So now we (of course not me--but Blake! haha) get to take apart the toilet, retrieve the rock (I assured the older brother that we can always bleach the heck out of the rock), and put the toilet together again. Fun stuff. This is life.